One of the basketball players slams past my shoulder, sending a spurt of tea that barely misses my jeans. “Gah!” This is ridiculous. I slurp at my wrist. “Not now. When is your spare today?”
“I don’t have one, and I don’t have the same lunch as you either. Text me after first period, okay?”
“I don’t have my phone.”
“What? How do you not …” She shakes her head. She must remember who she is talking to. “What happened this time?”
“Forgot to charge it last night, then when I plugged it in ...” I shrug my shoulders. Generally speaking, I don’t forget a lot of things. School assignments, social plans, even my keys are not an issue. But for whatever reason, I lose or forget to bring my phone at least once a month. “Never mind. I’ll call you tonight, okay?”
“Fine, but if I find out this experience was with a certain someone, you are going to need to write my English paper for making me wait so long.”
“It’s not, but nice try. Oh, and take one of these teas. I don’t have time to give it away today.”
“You know I hate tea.” Her gaze lifts over my shoulder and she winces. “Give it to Evan. He looks like he’s about to bawl.” Jade waves a hand in the direction of a fringe kid from our English class. She begins to lumber away, resuming her hunched position. “And don’t forget to call me,” she says without waiting for my response.
“Trust me, I won’t forget.” I glance behind at Evan and duly note his morose appearance. He wears his usual fitted black jeans and hoodie but lacks the quaffed hair and the profusely cologned scent of the majority. He’s also missing his usual appendage, his girlfriend Nora, and seems lost in the crowd without her. He doesn’t strike me as a tea drinker, but then, Grams always told me everyone feels better with a cup of tea.
I approach him, and the smell of marijuana and BO overwhelms the aroma from the team. He glances up from his cell phone and raises an eyebrow. We don’t travel in the same circles, so this is veering into faux pas social rules.
“Hey, Evan, do you want a London Fog?” I hold out the cup.
“A London what?”
“Sorry, it’s black tea with vanilla and … It’s good, trust me. I have an extra if you want it.”
He stares at me without accepting or declining. His face holds a tense expression as though I’m offering him a much more serious choice. I thrust the tea at him, needing to climb the stairs to reach chemistry on time. A shiver rushes through my body, ending with sharp sensations on my wrist. I flinch and release the cup before his hand fully encircles it, and he lunges his other hand out to catch it. His wrist is crisscrossed with marks. Fresh cuts, from the looks of it.
He jerks his sleeve down and grasps the cup hard enough to make the lid pop off. We both crouch down to retrieve it from the floor. I arrive first and shift my gaze away as I pass him the lid. We stand, and I force a terse grin, but no words come. What would I say? He did not want those slashes seen.
What must he be feeling inside to do that to himself? Heat rises from my neck, up to my cheeks. My chest restricts. I want to bolt, but the quickening thuds of my heart are like a chant for me to stay. To say something. But I can only feel. Evan takes action for me. Before I can get out of my head long enough to look up, he’s halfway down the hall. A spark of light draws my eyes to his back. I blink hard. He rounds the corner at the end of the hallway, and I am still speechless.
With each step I travel toward class, my heart pounds out a remix-beat and my shoulders begin to ache with tension. This isn’t the first time I’ve felt another’s pain, as though my body needs to help out by empathizing. I’ve always cried when others were hurt or felt fear with another’s phobia, but now it’s more visceral. Almost real, like what I felt outside the Shens’ home. I glance down at my hand and wrist. I need to reassure myself that I’m fine. And I am.
Another weird anxiety symptom. That’s all. But what if this is the compassion thing Khi was talking about? And how exactly is it a gift? I practically burned Evan’s fresh wounds with said gift.
I should just forget what happened this morning. Take it as a sign I’m stressing too much over my stupid daily qualms. Besides, from everything I’ve seen and heard since arriving at school today, others clearly had way bigger issues than me.
CHAPTER FOUR
I forgot to call Jade. Okay, let’s be honest, I didn’t forget so much as feigned illness. When I got home from school on Monday, my phone had over forty text messages and notifications. Most of them were about Malin. My replies used the minimum number of keystrokes necessary to get my message across: it’s sad, got headache, can’t talk, in bed. I probably came off sounding inconsiderate and self-absorbed. And maybe I am. Isn’t that what all teenagers are supposed to be? So what if she’s dead? My life is messed up too. Wanna hear about that instead? But I didn’t. I may be self-absorbed, but I’m not narcissistic.
The reality is my life is not the priority at Ridgefield High, and I just need to accept that my sketchy hallucinations about other people’s issues pale in comparison to the real deal. Besides, two days have passed now, and I haven’t experienced anything else unusual.
So, I created a new mantra—forget it ever happened. It was working well until Mom decided she had other ideas. Centered around getting ice cream. In November.
In the summer, a trip to the Cow’s Pint brings back nostalgic memories of past accomplishments: our last day of school, my first Brownie badge, getting the lead in Annie. But when the offer of ice cream comes after the first frost, a darker set of memories comes to mind. Grams’ diagnosis being the most recent. It’s as if my parents decided the Cow’s Pint would be the PG-13 location of choice for unloading bad news. There’s even a booth of choice. Secluded from the rest of the fluorescent-lit store, it faces the street, blocked off from the door’s wind by a wall full of cartoon artwork.
The doorbell clangs as we jostle in, and Mom ushers me over to the cubbied space to stake our claim. Given it’s almost winter, we really don’t have a lot of competition. But I comply, having already placed my order on the car ride over.
Chalk drawings of TV cartoons from yesteryear fill the upper half of the wall. Curious George, Rainbow Dash, and Dora stare down at me, their twinkling eyes always confident that their fictional problems will resolve within twenty-three minutes. Maybe Mom’s hoping for a similar outcome this afternoon.
Loaded with double scoops of maple-walnut ice cream, she returns with a smile that looks glued on like a catalogue model. She slides in across from me, and the sight of sprinkle-encrusted waffle cones freezes my arm mid-reach. I shift back on the plastic bench, now hesitant to accept the best flavor of ice cream ever. Why? Sprinkles only appear for those conversations that require an extra level of rainbow magic to unload.
She fits the cone into my hand and slides a pile of napkins underneath as if I am a three-year-old who doesn’t lick the base of my scoop. With both hands around her own cone, she leans in. “How was school today?”
“Fine.” I twist my cone and trace a perfect circle with my tongue around the sprinkles, savoring the caramel ribbon that weaves through the maple. I’m not going to survive this talk without sweet reinforcement, so I may as well enjoy the bribe. “How was work?” I say between licks. If I can keep her on small talk, maybe she’ll forget her true agenda.